The Merchant of Four Seasons

Händler der vier Jarhreszeiten

One of Fassbinder’s most moving achievements, charting the decline of a fruit seller virtually ignored by those around him.

  • Director

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder

  • With

    Hans Hirschmüller, Irm Herrmann, Hanna Schygulla, Kurt Raab

  • West Germany 1972. 88min

  • Digital

  • Certificate

    15

  • English subtitles

Fassbinder was influenced by a range of aesthetic practices, but this chronicle of the downward spiral of a would-be-engineer-turned-fruitseller casually neglected by family, friends and society is as astute, unsentimental and affecting as Mouchette. Fassbinder’s conversion to the cause of melodrama was still recent, and the florid flourishes here are still counterbalanced by a minimalist focus on essentials.

The screening on Wednesday 1 June will be introduced.